Jefferson Davis
|- | colspan=2 align=center | 23rd United States Secretary of War In office March 7, 1853 – March 4, 1857 President Franklin Pierce Preceded by Charles Magill Conrad Succeeded by John Buchanan Floyd |- | colspan=2 align=center | United States Senator from Mississippi In office August 10, 1847 – September 23, 1851 Preceded by Jesse Speight Succeeded by John J. McRae In office March 4, 1857 – January 21, 1861 Preceded by Stephen Adams Succeeded by Secession Adelbert Ames (1870) |- | colspan=2 align=center | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives In office March 4, 1845 – June 1846 Served with: Stephen Adams, Robert W. Roberts and Jacob Thompson Preceded by William H. Hammett Robert W. Roberts Jacob Thompson Tilghman M. Tucker Succeeded by Henry T. Ellett |- | colspan=2 align=center | Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs In office 1849–1851 Preceded by Thomas Hart Benton Succeeded by James Shields In office 1857–1861 Preceded by John Weller Succeeded by James Wilson |- | colspan=2 align=center | President of the Confederate States of America In office February 18, 1861 – May 5, 1865 Vice President Alexander H. Stephens Preceded by Office instituted Succeeded by Office abolished |- | Born||June 3, 1808 Christian County, Kentucky |- | Died||December 6, 1889 (aged 81) New Orleans, Louisiana |- |'Nationality'||American, Confederate |- |'Political party'||Democratic |- |'Spouse(s)'||Sarah Knox Taylor Varina Howell |- |'Religion'||Episcopal |- | align=center colspan=2 | Military service Service/branch United States Army Mississippi Rifles Rank Colonel Battles/wars Mexican-American War |} Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American military officer, statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as the president of the Confederate States for its entire history, 1861 to 1865. A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States secretary of war under Pres. Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce Administration, he served as a U.S. senator representing the State of Mississippi. As a senator he argued against secession, but believed each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union. Davis resigned from the Senate in January 1861 after receiving word that Mississippi had seceded from the Union. The following month, he was provisionally appointed president of the Confederate States of America and was elected to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis was not able to find a strategy to defeat the more industrially-developed Union, even though the South only lost roughly one soldier for every two Union soldiers on the battlefield. After Davis was captured May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason, though not tried, and stripped of his eligibility to run for public office. This limitation was posthumously removed by order of Congress and President Jimmy Carter in 1978, 89 years after his death. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by its leading general, Robert E. Lee.